The Republican party took a more radical position. It advocated the levying of tariff duties, not primarily for the purpose of raising revenue,—that was made a secondary consideration,—but to protect from foreign competition the manufacturing and industrial enterprises of the United States. Then, it argued, these establishments, protected by the fostering arm of government, would grow great and strong, furnishing at once employment for labor at high wages, and a “home market” for the products of the American farm and mine. Controverting this alluring argument, the Democratic party held that government had no right to compel citizens of one class or section to contribute involuntarily to the support of citizens of some other class or section of the country. The only manner in which a protective tariff could protect, it pointed out, was by enabling the home manufacturer to charge a higher price because of the duty on foreign goods. This added price, it showed, must be paid into the pocket of the American manufacturer by the American consumer. Moreover, it declared, the farmer could only share the burden without receiving any of the benefits of a high protective tariff, the price of his products being fixed in the world’s markets at Liverpool and London. And the same thing, it held, was true of the laboring man, as the rate of his remuneration was fixed mainly by “the iron law of wages.” When Mr. Bryan was elected to Congress for his first term this question of tariff was the all-absorbing one before the people. The Republican party, in the zenith of its power, had enacted the McKinley tariff law, the embodiment of its views on this question, levying tariff duties so high as almost to exclude foreign competition. It was in this law, undoubtedly, that most of the great trusts and monopolies since formed read their birthright. Mr. Bryan, naturally, as a Democrat and a firm believer in the principles of government laid down by Thomas Jefferson, was vigorously opposed to the theory of a high protective tariff. The Congress in which he served his first term was Democratic, the result of the enactment of the trust-breeding McKinley tariff law. The Ways and Means Committee, of which Mr. Springer of Illinois was chairman, decided that relief might best be effected by the introduction of a series of bills, transferring certain commodities to the free list.